Death by Firing Squad Sanctioned in Utah
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Salt Lake City , March 23, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – Among the 55 bills Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed today was House Bill 11, Death Penalty Procedure Amendments. This bill establishes the firing squad as a secondary method for executions, in the event the drugs necessary for lethal injection cannot be obtained. Lethal injection remains the primary method for carrying out executions in Utah.
Those who voiced opposition to this bill are primarily arguing against capital punishment in general and that decision has already been made in our state, said Marty Carpenter, spokesman for Gov. Herbert. “We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit the death penalty and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a sentence is issued,” he said. “However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive branch.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield, touted the firing squad as a more humane form of execution, while opponents say it’s barbaric.
Jim Dabakis (D-District 2) spoke exclusively to Gephardt Daily on House Bill 11. “It’s a bad idea, it sends the wrong message about Utah, we ought not to have the death penalty at all. We certainly ought not to be the only state that has a firing squad, just bad, bad, bad idea,” he said.
In total, 34 states use capital punishment. All those states use lethal injection as the primary method of execution. According to the governor’s office, eight states have electrocution as a secondary method for execution, four use the gas chamber, three use hanging and two use the firing squad.
Three Utah inmates have been killed by firing squads since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed at Point of the Mountain in January 1977. At the time, he was the first inmate to be executed in the U.S. in more than a decade. In 1996, John Albert Taylor died by firing squad after being convicted in the death of an 11 year-old Washington Terrace girl. Inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner was the last man put to death by a Utah firing squad. Gardner was executed in 2010.
